


That's How You Know

by evol_love



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Disney Movies, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 09:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/881932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evol_love/pseuds/evol_love
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie has a romantic epiphany when Steven forces him to watch Enchanted with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That's How You Know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phonecallfromgod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phonecallfromgod/gifts).



> for Anna's birthday because she's OLD now. I love you, hope it's a great day! :)

It’s really all Steven’s fault, the whole ordeal. If he’d known when he’d put the dvd in what he was getting himself into, he’d probably have just lied and told Charlie the disc was scratched, and that it was a shit movie anyway. But you can’t exactly blame Steven for what he did. It was a perfectly logical reaction to the situation.

He’d been doing the dishes and absentmindedly humming as he worked, and Charlie had walked in with an eyebrow raised and asked, “What on earth are you humming?”

And then Steven had promptly had a fit of hysterics and yelled at Charlie, “Tell me you’re joking. Please. You can’t possibly be telling me you don’t know the Happy Working Song.” And when Charlie had just looked more confused and skeptical, Steven had demanded, “Have you never seen _Enchanted_?” Charlie just shook his head like it was a ridiculous question, and that had settled it. “Well, you’re going to watch it right now. How have you possibly escaped ever seeing this movie?”

“By being a teenage boy?”

“It’s one of my favorites,” Steven tries, and Charlie softens. 

“All right, let’s watch this, then.”

“You should have watched it a long time ago,” Steven mutters under his breath, going over to the tv. Charlie only laughs at him a little bit when Steven pulls his own personal Blu-ray copy out of the enormous dvd collection they’d built up over the years. 

“Oh _no_ , Steven, you _own_ the Disney princess movie? Whatever happened to not living up to gay stereotypes?” Steven replies by smacking him over the head with the dvd case and skipping through the trailers straight to the menu. 

Charlie made them popcorn (and the way Charlie’s eating it manages to temporarily distract Steven from Disney in favor of doing some unspeakably filthy things on the couch, which may actually have been Charlie’s plan all along), and Steven is laying across his lap, head resting back against his chest as they watch. And, god, Steven hasn’t seen this movie in ages, and it is still _so good._ All he can think about is how clever the whole thing is, and how he can name every single allusion to other Disney movies, and how gorgeous the dresses Amy Adams fashions from curtains are.  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------  
He doesn’t realize he’s grinning like a child until Charlie pokes his cheek and asks, “Did your face freeze like that?”

Steven blushes but can’t actually make himself stop smiling. “Sorry, it’s just...this movie made me-- _still_ makes me--believe in love.”

Charlie’s mouth snaps shut and a faint crease appears between his eyebrows. Steven knows they should probably talk about that, but Charlie goes back to the movie and, after a moment, so does he. Besides, Giselle has just started singing in the park, and he’s not exactly interested in interrupting that. And if this song can’t cure a mood, nothing can. He half-expects Charlie to make fun of him for sort of hum-singing along, but a sideways glance proves otherwise: Charlie is watching him instead of the movie with an impossible, immeasurable affection.

“I liked that song,” Charlie says when the number ends.

“Good. I’d have had to make you move out if you didn’t.”

Charlie snorts. “Like you’d ever get rid of me.” Point. “But I’m serious.”

“Well, it’s in my iTunes library, go nuts,” he says, momentarily a bit distracted by Patrick Dempsey. 

In retrospect, that had been the second mistake.  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------  
“Oh my god, you are _not_ crying. Please tell me I am not dating a man that cries at the end of _Enchanted_.”

“Shut up, this is beautiful,” Steven sniffles, shoving Charlie and stuffing his face with the remains of the popcorn as the epilogue plays out. “It’s just...I know it’s dumb, but I really love when everyone gets their happily ever after, you know? This whole thing just makes me remember that love is _real_ and I just...I really love love.” he sighs as the credits begin to roll. “That probably doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Charlie agrees. “But it was cute, so I’ll continue to sleep with you anyway.”

“I knew it, he only likes me for my body,” Steven complains to the air around him, and Charlie laughs and pulls him close, kissing the back of his neck. Steven’s just starting to feel a little drowsy when Charlie kisses his neck again, and again, and then sucks a bruise into the place where his shoulder and neck meet, and suddenly he’s very much awake. “Do you think we could skip that ‘sleep’ bit in favor of the ‘with you' thing?” he asks breathlessly, and he can almost _hear_ Charlie’s answering triumphant smirk.  
\------------------------------------------------------------------  
Charlie has an early shift down at the coffeehouse the next morning, so he’s gone before Steven wakes up. Sometimes Steven thinks about the fact that his boyfriend is actually employed, and has managed to remain so for an extended period of time, and feels kind of impressed and amazed. Although, if he’s honest, it’s pretty likely the only reason they keep Charlie is because he charms the customers into more expensive drinks and repeated business. Steven would worry about that more if Charlie wasn’t Charlie and if he didn’t come home every day and complain about all the people who flirted with him at work. 

It’s not until he’s had his morning coffee and is halfway through his breakfast that he notices the note written in Charlie’s quick handwriting on the fridge.

_You’ll be on my mind all day at work. I can’t wait to come home to you._

A normal person might have signed off with the four letter word, but that’s not a thing Charlie does or says, and it’s so incredibly sweet and unusual that Steven doesn’t mind at all. He shoves the note into his pocket and catches himself taking it out and rereading more than once at work that day. He’s not sure where the sappy, domestic, threateningly normal-couple behavior came from, but he’ll take it.  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------  
The next time Charlie does something dumb and thoughtful, it’s raining. (In hindsight, Charlie probably waited until the rain came to strike.) He’d gone to work early again that morning, and this time when Steven shuffles into the kitchen, there’s a vase full of sunflowers so vibrant it’s like he walked into a Van Gogh painting. 

“What on earth...” he breathes as he picks up the scribbled note beside the flowers. 

_A bit of sunshine for when the sky is gray._

Steven’s more confused by the sudden romantic mood Charlie’s in than anything else, but he’s not exactly going to complain.

“You’re ridiculous,” he laughs when Charlie comes home later.

“Did you like them?” Charlie asks, and Steven answers him with a kiss.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------  
But when Charlie takes him out dancing the following day, the familiarity of it all begins to dawn on him. 

There’s no fucking way. No way would Charlie _actually_ do what Steven thinks he’s doing. 

The note, the yellow flowers, even the dancing could all be just a coincidence. But when Charlie gets them to play “Something” on Steven’s behalf, he has to acknowledge that, yeah, Charlie is _actually_ trying to prove his love to Steven by means of lyrics from _Enchanted._

He decides to just not bring it up, knowing it’ll run its course and then Charlie will go back to how he always is. Which is totally fine, of course. Steven is a pretty big fan of who Charlie is and what he does. He just wishes sometimes that Charlie wouldn’t be so afraid of the L-word.  
No, not _that_ one.  
\---------------------------------------------------------------  
It’s the sweater, next. Steven feels a bit dizzy when Charlie first wears it, because _damn._ it looks expensive and soft, and it’s a rich dark brown color that Steven is positive he’d find staring right back at him if he were to look in a mirror. The temptation to tell Charlie off for being an idiot dies a quiet death.  
\----------------------------------------------------------------  
He ends up breaking four days later, though. It was inevitable, and probably all for the best.

“Hey, Steven-”

“I know it’s a picnic next, Charlie, and I appreciate the thought, but I have work in fifteen minutes.” 

Charlie just smiles. “Damn. I’ve been caught.”

“You are an absolutely _ridiculous_ person, Charlie Dalton. You know that, don’t you?”

“How am I ridiculous?”

“If you really felt this way all you ever had to do was say three little words.” It comes out before he even thinks about it. Steven really hadn’t meant to say it; he’s a bit shocked at his own honesty. 

“Oh.”

“Just forget it, okay, I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

“I love you.” Charlie says it carefully, enunciating like he’s trying to convince himself more than anyone, like he’s practicing saying it in front of the bathroom mirror to make sure he doesn’t sound stupid. “I love you,” Charlie says again, more real this time, trying to look determined and as if he isn’t completely losing his mind on the inside. His eyes are too vulnerable, though. They’ve always been a giveaway. 

“Charlie.”

“I do. I’ve-” he stumbles for just a second, and Steven almost tells him to stop, that it’s okay and he knows and it’s all fine and he doesn’t have to do this, but then Charlie continues as if this isn’t a really big deal to both of them. “I’ve loved you since that moment you walked up to me and said ‘I’ve had enough of all of this,’ and kissed me that first time. I loved you when I met your parents, and I loved you when we didn’t meet mine because I didn’t want you to run away, and I loved you when we moved in together, and I love you right now.” 

“You idiot,” Steven says, probably kissing him hard enough to leave a bruise. “You know sappy shit makes me cry.”  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------  
“You know Steven,” Charlie begins later that night when they’re curled around each other in bed. “I heard from a pretty reliable source that it’s not enough to take the one you love for granted, and that you have to remind her or she’ll be inclined to say some stuff about ‘how do I know he loves me’ and all that.”

There are a lot of things Steven wants to say: that Charlie’s a dumbass, that Charlie’s adorable, that Steven loves him so much it hurts, but he settles for, “are you calling me a girl?”

“No. Look, the point is, I’m trying, okay? I know I’m really bad at this whole ‘being in love’ thing, but I’m trying to make sure you know that I am, that I do, every day.” he kisses Steven then, and it feels like a promise.

And then-

“We should watch _Enchanted_ again.”

“Absolutely not.”

“First you force me into it, now you won’t let me watch it. These are some incredibly mixed signals you’re giving me.”

Steven groans and slumps face first onto his pillow. “I hate you.”

Charlie just smirks in that way that makes Steven go weak and says softly, “No you don’t.”

Steven sits up. “You put ‘That’s How You Know’ on your iPod, didn’t you.”

“Top 25 Most Played list, baby,

“ _Hate_ you.”

Charlie laughs a little and wraps his arm around Steven’s waist to pull him closer. “Love you too.”


End file.
